Although it is almost like a moth to the fire, Wu Wang Liu Bi decided to take the risk, anyway, all the deaths are all. In the first month of the third year of Emperor Jing of Han (154 BC), the Han court issued an edict to cut land in Wu. The problem always needs to be faced directly. King Liu Bi of Wu decided to make an appointment, and then "sincited Han officials below 2,000 stones" and rebelled in Guangling. "Wu King Liu Bi issued an order in the Wu Kingdom:
I am sixty-two years old and I am the general of my own. My youngest son was fourteen years old and I am also the first soldiers. In all the years, those with me and my lower sons were all sent out.
After Liu Bi raised his troops, King Chu Liu Wu " Then he responded to the rebellion of the King of Wu. The prime minister Zhang Shang and the Grand Tutor Zhao Yiwu advised him, but he refused to listen, so he killed Shang and Yiwu and raised an army to meet Wu. "Wu and Chu joined forces and marched westward, "Wu and Chu The rebellion of the seven kings " officially broke out.
The rebellion of the seven kings
Qi dynasties also responded immediately, and Jiaoxi King Liu Zuo "slaughtered Han officials below 2,000 stones" and "sent troops to the west". Then, the kings of Jiaodong, Fengchuan, and Jinan "sent troops to respond to Wu and Chu". The kings of Zhao Liu Sui in the north also raised troops to follow him and killed Zhao Xiang and the inner historian who blocked his rebellion, "sending troops to the west, so wait for Wu and Chu to advance, and the north sent the Xiongnu and Lianhe ”.
If we look at the prediction of Chao Cuo , it seems that the princes and kings will rebel regardless of whether the vassals are reduced or not. However, if Chao Cuo had no radical policy and did not change the previous pattern of centralization and decentralization system complementing each other, the rebellion of the princes might not have occurred, at least not so quickly. Perhaps, the Han court was waiting for a rebellion.
Seven Kingdoms rebellion
Liu Bi's legal basis for the uprising of the army was that Emperor Jing appointed Chao Cuo and implemented the policy of reducing the vassals. "Because the Han Dynasty had traitors and ministers, they had no contribution to the world, invaded the land of the princes, and made officials impeached the rule, and invaded the rule of the rule, and invaded the flesh and blood of the Liu family with courtesy, and ruled the ancestors, and ruled the heroes of the late emperor, and appointed traitors, deceived the world, and wanted to endanger the country. "The so-called "thief minister" here is naturally Chao Cuo. Killing Huangcuo to calm the country is the strategy of the rebellion of King Wu.
In fact, Emperor Jing's Han Empire and Emperor Gaozu Liu Bang's Han Empire are no longer the same. In the operation to kill Zhu Lu and rebuild the empire, King Qi Liu Xiang , Zhu Xuhou , Liu Zhang and Dongmu marquis Liu Xingju played a key role. King Dai Liu Heng was just a dark horse who won by chance. However, after the King Dai won the throne, he tried his best to suppress and attack the princes and kings of the Qi marquis, King Wu, King Chu, etc., destroyed the original balance of power and factual alliance, so it was a matter of time before the breakup.
Han Jingdi marquis
King Wu Liu Bian's strength seems to be in many historical books. It was a bit exaggerated. At the beginning of the reign of the army, he boasted that "the country is narrow and the area is three thousand miles; although there are few people, the elite soldiers can have 500,000. I have been in Nanyue for more than 30 years, and the kings and kings have never refused to divide their troops to follow me, and they can get more than 300,000. "The Wu State could not mobilize 500,000 troops at that time, and as for the more than 300,000 reinforcements in Nanyue, they even made a cake to satisfy their hunger.
There was no unified institutional basis between King Liu Bi of Wu and the rebellious princes and kings. It was just temporarily pieced together to deal with the Han court's policy of "reducing the vassals". It was a typical externalized collective action. The princes and kings were independent interest groups, so there was inevitably a lack of synergy. In comparison, the Han court was a unified centralized political unit. Its counter-insertion behavior was a typical single internal collective action, and its execution and action power were necessarily higher than that of the Wu Chu group.
The rebellion of the seven kings
Wu Chu princes' army did take a certain initiative in the early stage of the war, and the united direction to the west, Going straight to Chang'an, the capital of Han. In order to ease the tension, Emperor Jing of Han delayed time and killed Chao Cuo to satisfy Wu Chu's demand to "clean the king's side" in order to ease the tension. Sacrifice Chao Cuo was not the weakness of Emperor Jing of Han, but to force the princes of Wu and Chu to a point where there is no way to retreat. Should they kill Chao Cuo, they will stop their troops and return to their fiefdom? Then what is waiting for them is still killing and revenge.
Chao Cuo's death, informing Wu and Chu generals to rebel to the end, also provided space for the Han court to completely resolve the problem of the princes. King Liu Bi of Wu could no longer have a way back, so he said to the Han envoy who came to lobby, "I am already an Eastern Emperor."
If we look at the power of the princes and kings across the country, there are 22 princes and kings across the country, only 7 participated in the rebellion, and there are 15 princes and kings that have not been involved in it. Among these 15 princely kingdoms, the situation is very complicated. One of them was that he had conspiracy with the King of Wu before, but when he implemented it to the actual level, he did not participate in the rebellion. Instead, he stood on the side of the Han court. For example, there were 7 countries in Jibei, Qi, Chengyang, Huainan and Yan. The turnarounds of these countries caused Wu and Chu to lose a group of extremely important allies, greatly weakening their strategies, so they would "make their own progress and collapse."
Chao Cuo
In addition to this kind of fence-holding princes, the "secretization and relocation" feudal strategy that began in the era of Emperor Wen played a role. The eight vassal states led by Liang State are Emperor Wen and Emperor Jing’s sons. Their political interests are closely linked to Emperor Jing’s court, so they stood on the side of the court in the war, especially the Liang State, which became a key factor in pacifying the rebellion of the seven countries.
In just three months, the Han court quelled this seemingly massive rebellion, but in fact it was just a suicide-like rebellion. The rebel leader Liu Bi was defeated and killed. The Han court immediately made new adjustments to the governance order of the vassal states, and the centralized state further developed.
First of all, it is the abolition of the Wu Kingdom. After the killing of King Liu Bin of Wu, Emperor Jing once wanted to find a new heir from his nephew and survive, but was opposed by Empress Dowager Dou. She believed that "the King of Wu is also an old man, and it is better to be a good family for the royal family. Now he is the first to lead the seven countries to chaotic the world, how can he continue?" As a result, the State of Wu was abolished and existed for 42 years.
Han Jingdi
For the followers of Wu Chu , Emperor Jing took a different approach to treat his country, and preserved his vassal state. Liu Li, the Marquis of Pinglu (son of King Liu Jiao of Yuan Dynasty of Chu) who served as Zongzheng in the court, was the King of Chu, which was considered to be a preservation of incense.
The rest of the Jiaoxi, Jiaodong, Huaichuan, Jinan and Zhao countries that participated in the rebellion will be abolished.
This adjustment was obviously a heavy blow to the princes and kingdoms since the early Han Dynasty, and the effect was far more thorough than peacefully reducing the vassal states.
In addition to re-adjusting the governance order of the rebellious countries, Emperor Jing also reset and restored a number of princes. The most important thing is to enfeoff the princes as kings. Emperor Jing had a total of 14 sons. Before the rebellion of the Seven Kingdoms, he had been named 6 sons. After the Seven Kingdoms' Rebellion, the remaining 8 sons were successively established as kings, and the original title of kings was adjusted:
First, the establishment of Jiangdu and the restoration of Lu was established in the original Wu and Chu states' old lands. The Jiangdu Kingdom was first established in June of the third year of Emperor Jing. Emperor Jing changed the title of Liu Fei, the King of Runan who had made contributions to suppress the rebellion, to "governing the old country of Wu." However, compared with the previous Wu Kingdom, Jiangdu Kingdom only had two counties: Jingjun and Dongyang. At the same time, the county of Chu and Xue was divided, and the State of Lu was renamed, and the King of Huaiyang Liu Yu was transferred to King of Lu.
For the formerly troublesome countries of Qi, Emperor Jing restored Jiaoxi and Jiaodong. In June of the third year of Emperor Jingdi, Jiaoxi was re-established and the prince was established as the king of Jiaoxi. In April of the fourth year, Jiaodong Kingdom was re-established and the prince was established as the king of Jiaodong, and Liu Che was later Emperor Wu of Han.
For the original Zhao Kingdom’s old place, the five countries, including Zhongshan, Zhao, Guangchuan, Qinghe, and Changshan , were reset or restored.
Western Han army
Among the above-mentioned princes and kingdoms, until the fifth year of Emperor Jingzhong, there were a total of 21 princes and kings in the country, and Emperor Jing occupied 10 of them, which shows the purpose of "using personal control of intercession". In addition, compared with the vassal kingdoms in the early Han Dynasty and even in the early years of Emperor Jing, the territory of the vassal kingdoms had been greatly reduced at this time, and they were firmly monitored by the central forces of the Han court. There was no possibility of any challenge to the authority of the central government.
This "Seven Kingdoms Rebellion" occurred in 154 BC, becoming a turning point in the change of political system in the Han Dynasty. The role of a heterogeneous prince who was originally unified in the family and country isomorphic was deprived of it, and thus included in the centralized political system of a single track system.
